


With You, Obviously

by WishUponADragon



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: AR Febuwhump (Alex Rider), Angst with a Happy Ending, Broken Bones, Car Accidents, Day 16, FebuWhump2021, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29483265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishUponADragon/pseuds/WishUponADragon
Summary: It's a beautiful night for a well deserved graduation party. The moon is full, the forest is quiet, and the roads are almost empty. Almost.
Relationships: Tom Harris/Alex Rider
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34
Collections: AR Febuwhump 2021





	With You, Obviously

**Author's Note:**

> Day 16! Thanks Lupin for organizing and cthulhu_is_chaotic_good for betaing!

“Did I just pass the exit?”

Alex didn’t need to check the map on Tom’s phone. “No, it’s two further.”

“Okay.” Tom gripped the wheel of his dad’s Honda Accord a little tighter than was necessary. Alex grinned. Getting a driving licence had been one of the things he’d skipped while trying to fit his life around MI6’s expectations, but Tom had taken to it well. 

Well enough in fact that his dad had entrusted him with his most prized possession for the special event. The car was brand new and made mirrored to normal, American style. Alex wasn’t entirely sure whether it was legal to drive, but it was one of the few things Tom wasn’t worried about, so he let it go.

The graduation party was a big deal for everyone, but especially for Alex. It had been a miracle he’d finished school at all, much less in the year he was supposed to, and he was looking forward to celebrating it. 

He would have been happy just to spend the night with Jack and Tom, but large graduation parties were practically traditional and Tom had twisted his arm to go since he’d missed so much else. The parents of a girl with a mansion by a lake had very considerately left for a weekend holiday, and half the school had immediately made plans to take advantage of it. 

“Two more, really though?” Tom’s thumbs danced nervously on the wheel. “I don’t remember Kelsa’s house being this far out here.”

“Her name’s Kylie, and it is, you just weren’t driving to the last party.”

“Right, right.” His voice was tight and pitched to a higher register than normal, just exactly how it used to be when he was telling him about Laura. Alex mentally ran through the people who were supposed to be there. Tom had a crush on one of them, and he’d be happy to help him out if he could figure out which. 

He let his gaze drift out the window at the passing trees, whipping by in a slight blur. Clearly not Kylie, and he’d finally gotten over Laura after many nights of video games and ice cream, so not her either. “Who’d you hear about the party from?”

“Oh, Kevin tweeted about it.” Not Kevin either, he was taken. Alex guessed he could probably look through the replies if he could find the tweet, but it was a lot easier to just ask Tom. Someone heading the other way had their brights on and Alex reflexively recoiled from the sudden brightness.

It was an instinct born from being sought out by searchlights and interrogated under harsh lighting designed to keep him from properly seeing his tormentors. Alex turned away slightly, wishing the other car would pass quickly. 

Something was wrong. The lights were pointed directly at them, too directly for a car on the other side of the road, and they were joined by another pair from behind. Alex reached over and pushed on the steering wheel just as the first car slammed loudly into the side of the car and the second one added its own force with a jolt that sent them careening off the road entirely. 

The light was almost blinding and Alex didn’t know if it was an aftershock of the first car’s headlights or something his mind conjured. The sensation of sharpness through his heart was something he’d come to associate with pain, but he couldn’t tell what actually hurt him. His jaw rattled just out of time with the shaking of the out of control car. The unbroken headlight on Tom’s side illuminated the mud and gravel as the car spun. Dark shapes flew past them at dizzying speed beyond the shattered and cracked windows. 

The airbags rapidly filled the front of the car, keeping them from being thrown out and muffling Tom’s panicked shouts. Alex was pushed hard back against the seat. Something snapped with a noise that made him think of useless thumbs and slipped handcuffs. Almost before the car’s momentum and his own vertigo subsided Alex pushed the airbag off of his face enough to reach over to Tom. 

“Quiet,” he hissed, twisting around to see if the two cars were still on the road or nearby. He didn’t see them, but that didn’t mean they’d left. A jolt of pain in his leg brought Alex’s attention back and he looked around for what was causing it. Whatever it was was under the airbag, which was being very slow about deflating. Alex looked outside again for any sign of light or movement. 

“What the fuck was that for!” Tom’s anger caught Alex off guard. He’d expected an attack from outside, but the wildly swung hand from his friend was a surprise and it caught him on the ear. He jerked away and blocked the second one.

Alex bit back his frustration. He guessed Tom hadn’t noticed that the hit was intentional. Whether he knew or not, they didn’t have time for this fight, they needed to already be moving, needed to already be getting out of danger. “I said be quiet!” 

The fury on Tom’s face melted quickly as the realization sunk in. “Oh. Oh my god.” He turned back to look at the road they’d just been on. “Someone just tried to kill us. Alex, did someone just try to kill us?”

“Yes! Be quiet.” The road was still dark, there was no crunch of footsteps approaching them. The ground around them was partially gravel, it would make noise. Alex hoped he’d be able to hear it over the ringing. Was that the car? No, it was just from his ear. Had he hit it against the door? Maybe. Alex didn’t reach up to touch it. There would be time to assess the damage later, after they were out of danger and after the adrenaline rush wore off enough for it to actually hurt. 

Tom was fearful now, but thankfully quieter. “Are they still trying to kill us?”

No one had pulled them out of the wreck and shot them yet. It didn’t mean they weren’t circling back to do so. Running them off the road without following it up with a spray of bullets was something someone would do if they wanted to make a murder look accidental. 

Alex hoped they wanted that more than they wanted it completed. “Maybe. I don’t know.” The airbags had slackened and the pressure shift made the pain in Alex’s leg sharpen. He didn’t move it, didn’t test how bad it was. He wouldn’t be able to put it off for long.

“Do you- do you know who hit us?” 

Alex hadn’t seen the cars, the lights were too bright and the moment of the crash too chaotic. The list of people with motives was too long to be useful. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t see anyone. We need to get away from the car, into the treeline away from the road, in case they come back.”

Giving him a job to do was usually the fastest way to make Tom snap out of the panic spiral he got into when anything went even slightly wrong. It helped now, luckily. Alex wasn’t sure he could keep it together for both of them. He wasn’t even positive he was keeping it together at all.

“Right. Okay.” Tom stumbled through the words as if they were lifelines. “My dad keeps a knife in here, that should get through the seatbelts.”

There was enough broken glass around them that they wouldn’t have needed it, but Alex didn’t point it out. The glass was just something that would set off the unhelpful panic spiral again if Tom thought about it too long. 

“Can’t we just unbuckle the seatbelt?” Alex reached down to check his own. It clicked open fine, but pulling it away made pain spike through his leg again. That was definitely bad. He glanced at the door to his right, crumpled by the impact of the first car. He wondered whether it would open, but didn’t check. That would mean moving and he wasn’t ready yet.

Tom huffed and undid his own seatbelt, but pulled what turned out to be a tiny pocketknife out of the console anyways, as if it might actually afford them some protection. “Right, of course, that is- that’s one less step. Okay, next... next we...”

“Open the door?” Alex suggested. The side of the car next to him was buckled inwards, scraping up against his arm. He tried not to compare what he could see now with how it had been before, but it was readily apparent the space around him had definitely been much bigger a minute ago. Alex shook his head to clear his thoughts. It wasn’t helpful. Waiting wasn’t helping either, they needed to  _ go _ . He felt like his mind was uselessly spinning in place, like a machine out of gear.

He put a hand on the door and pushed, tentatively testing whether it would fall off if he tried to open it. Nothing. Alex tugged on the handle, but it didn’t budge. He leaned his weight against the door, which shifted the balance of forces pressing in on him. Alex arched back against the seat and grit his teeth to keep himself from screaming. Whatever was wrong with his leg wasn’t something he could keep putting off anymore. 

Tom was struggling with getting the deflated airbag enough out of the way to find the door handle. He turned back to look at Alex. He must not have been completely successful at staying quiet. “Alex? What’s wrong?”

Alex didn’t think Tom would be able to see how badly they’d been hit on his side since the only illumination besides the half moon above was the single headlight casting ominous shadows out into the forest. “Nothing. I’m fine. Just get moving.”

“Are you sure, you don’t seem okay-”

Alex cut him off with a quick shake of his head. “Don’t. Please, Tom, do not make me do this right now. I said I’m fine, so I’m fine.” He pressed on the door again. It didn’t budge. That was fine. He could get out another way. Then all they’d have to do is hide. Alex couldn’t think about why getting to the cover of the forest was going to be impossible. Just one problem at a time. 

Tom nodded quietly and got out. He circled around to the front of the car and gaped at the damage. Alex looked between his friend’s face and the open driver’s side door. That was a better choice than the obvious lost cause that was getting out from his side. 

It would work. It would. He’d handled way harder stuff than this. It only hurt as much as he let it. 

He pushed himself onto the console and twisted around, checking the range of movement he had. His left leg was not broken, he could use it. His right leg hurt, but it wasn’t caught on anything. Okay. This was going to work.

A light flooded the car. Alex jumped, his heartrate double what it should have been. But it was just Tom, leaning through the open door. “What are you doing?”

“Turn that off!” Alex snapped, bringing a hand up to cover his eyes. The light was not helping, it just sparkled on the broken glass and made it clear how much red there was. Just red. Alex couldn't attach any other name to it yet.

Tom switched the light off. “I- I’m calling an ambulance.” His tone held all the horror Alex couldn’t let himself feel. After they were out of danger, maybe. Not now. 

“No. No hospitals,” Alex pleaded. They were in the most danger there, forced to sit still with no way to leave without someone noticing. Completely helpless against anyone who wanted to finish the job they’d just botched. He pushed himself backwards, into the driver’s seat, and slowly started moving his leg to follow. It was starting to go numb now. That was probably bad, but it was a relief. “Call Jack, or Ben. Do you have their-”

“Alex! You look like you lost a fight with a tiger. This isn’t something you can stick a bandaid on and have chicken soup about.” It was the angriest Alex had ever heard his friend and he shut up and listened, partially turned towards him. “I’m not just going to watch you bleed out, okay? You can’t ask me to do that Alex, I- I won’t. Six- they’d have a medical facility, right? If you really don’t want to go to the hospital I can call them. Which do I call? Ambulance or Six?” 

They weren’t an option. Either they’d find some way to use this- put him in a hospital near someone they wanted him to spy on- or they’d decide it made him worthless. He was already past the point where his youth made him go unnoticed. If he couldn’t walk because of this they might not even bother keeping him alive. 

Alex realized he’d been staring out into the woods and glanced over to Tom. He was furious, and not unscathed by the crash himself. His nose shouldn’t have been at that angle, and it definitely shouldn’t have been streaming blood, and still Tom was more worried about him. As much as Alex didn’t want to admit it, he was right. This wasn’t something they could handle by themselves. “Ambulance.” 

Tom nodded and stepped away, flicking through his phone for the keypad to call. Alex halfway pulled himself out of the car, wincing as his foot hit the floorboard and glared at him. “No, get away from the car and go hide. They might come back.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Tom grumbled. He held the phone up to his ear and looked away from Alex. Had he always been this stubborn?

Fine. If he was that determined to be stupid and stay with him, Alex would just have to get them both somewhere safe. He clung to the roof of the car and the top of the door- could it even hold his weight, what if it had been compromised in the crash, no, no, it was fine, and if it wasn’t it didn’t matter- and pulled himself backwards until he could stand on his left leg and hold onto the car. He didn’t look at the other one. It was fine. Or it wasn’t important, Alex couldn’t decide which.

He looked over their surroundings- longish grass, not thick enough cover to hide in, a nearby ditch they’d barely stopped from driving into, too well illuminated with the direct angle of the moonlight, and the forest, dark and thick with brush and much better for keeping them hidden and safe but so far away that he felt dizzy just considering it- while he listened to Tom explain to the operator that they’d been in a wreck, and what road they were on, and how many people were hurt.

Alex tried not to notice how Tom’s voice shook now that he wasn’t yelling at him and how much more fragile he seemed. Despite how much he relied on Tom to stay sane, he was a normal person, not familiar with the usual processes of assassination attempts and definitely not used to being involved in them. Alex dimly registered that he shouldn’t have been used to it either, shouldn’t have been accustomed to the adrenaline and the pain. 

A car whipped past them and Alex ducked down, falling hard to his knees and softly hissing for Tom to hide. Tom barely noticed, only looking around for danger after he heard Alex. The car kept driving, either not seeing them or not caring. That was better than stopping though, it meant it hadn’t been a threat. Not a threat was as good as help. 

Or at least Alex tried to convince himself. Landing on his leg meant he couldn’t keep ignoring the bone poking through his shin, or the fact that moving around like this had to have made it worse. 

Someone in Brecon Beacons had gone over field medicine once, how to keep pressure on a large wound, when tourniquets were useful, how to tell if an injury required stitches or amputation or just to be set, but Alex had been so focused on getting out of danger he hadn’t thought about it, and now he was getting too lightheaded to remember the specifics of the lecture. Or maybe that was the concussion. Had he been this dizzy before getting out of the car? He couldn’t remember.

They should have been gone by now. He should have had them moving immediately, he’d given the assassins chance after chance by waiting, by not being able to pull himself together well enough to flee... No. No. Not helpful. Alex blinked hard, trying to focus. The gravel under his hands was rough and the pattern of the rocks in his vision doubled and swam around itself like something out of a cartoon.

Tom hung up and immediately looked back at the road as if they might already be arriving on the scene. “Okay, someone’s coming, she said it was only gonna be a few minutes. Can you make it?”

A few minutes. A lot could happen in a few minutes. How long had it been already? It felt like forever. It couldn’t have been very long, five minutes at the most, but Alex had no real way of knowing. “That’s too long. We still need to hide.”

Tom was quiet and Alex didn’t need to look over at him to know that his eyes were blown wide with fear and worry. He knew his best friend well enough for that at least. “Alex, I don’t know if we can.” He kept talking, quickly, too quickly for Alex to argue- he knew him just as well. “The medics are going to check by the wreck, we shouldn’t make it harder for them to find us. You need help!”

“The people who tried to kill us are going to check by the wreck too.” Standing was absolutely impossible. The way the ground below him was a bed of needles, the way the wind that was too gentle to move his hair felt like it would topple him, the way his leg screamed in protest at the mere thought of supporting his weight. It all tugged Alex down, whispered that he should submit to the whims of gravity, threatened to drown him. “The ground’s too rocky to leave footprints. You can get away, they won’t follow.” One witness who couldn’t have seen much wouldn’t be worth the time he would take to track. 

“I already said I’m not leaving you, stop asking me to.” Tom knelt next to him and gently pushed Alex to the side, forcing him to roll off of his hurt leg. Alex tried not to react to Tom tying his jacket around it, but every nerve felt like a livewire now, and something had to be wrong with his lungs and throat, or maybe there just wasn’t any air around them at all...

He didn’t know how much time he lost, but suddenly Tom was done pulling at his leg and it still stung like it had been burned but the feeling was fading. When had he started leaning against the car?

The gap between the body of the car and the ground made him feel like he was falling. Alex stared at the jacket around his leg for a moment before straightening up. “Okay. Okay, don’t go.” He waved under the car. “Hide here.” Anyone coming to look for them would see Alex first. Tom wasn’t their target. He’d be too much trouble to look for, assuming he didn’t do anything stupid and save them that trouble. “And give me the knife.” 

Alex frantically thought of lies he could offer to explain, none of which would have held up to any sort of questioning, but Tom didn’t ask, only passed the tiny switchblade over and crawled beneath the car. “Aren’t you coming too?”

“Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute.” He hated lying to Tom. Worse, he hated knowing Tom could tell he was lying. He had to understand though, didn’t he? Probably not. He was stubborn like that. 

The sirens were off, leaving only the headlights to herald their approach. Alex jumped at the sound of the tires leaving the road and crunching over the gravel. The sight of the large boxy emergency vehicle calmed him momentarily. 

He’d lost time again. How much? It could have been a few seconds, could have been an hour, he had no way to tell them apart anyways. 

The medics getting out reminded him of a strike team pouring out of a van to storm a building and he tensed again. How difficult was it to steal an ambulance? What if this had been their goal, to wound and then abduct him? Why hadn’t it occurred to him until now?

He couldn’t possibly convince Tom of this, he’d call him crazy. Paranoid. And he’d be right, he desperately needed medical attention and they had called for an ambulance, this should be safe, but people had gone further to manipulate him before. He wasn’t crazy. And it wasn’t paranoia when someone really did want to hurt him.

There was a light in his eyes and someone was asking questions. Alex flinched. Tom was beside him and Alex wanted to warn him to run, to get away, but his mouth wouldn’t move and Tom was already talking to them. 

Someone was touching him, pulling the knife from his hand, moving him onto something flat. Alex resisted but it was impossible, like he’d been grabbed by a robot, he couldn’t budge them. 

A mask was being slipped over his face. Alex tried to shake his head and fling it off, tried to stop breathing, anything to keep the fog in his head from deepening into the drug induced coma he knew all too well was coming. 

Someone clicked a strap across his chest. 

Alex gasped.

  
  


* * *

  
  


He woke up to the rhythmic beeping of the heartrate monitor, the harsh lights, and the antiseptic smell that he’d been getting far too familiar with over the past few years, and Tom leaning over him and shaking his arm excitedly. “Oh, good, they said the anesthetic would wear off soon, but I wasn’t sure how soon soon was, and it’d been about four hours six minutes ago and I was getting worried and-”

“How long have you been waiting here?” Alex pushed himself upright. A myriad of bandages across his body and a cast around his leg tugged at the blankets.

“Haven’t left,” Tom said casually, climbing onto the bed to sit next to him. “They kicked me out already but I just waited until the shift change and asked the new nurse to let me in again.” 

Alex laughed a little. His chest hurt, but in the dull way he was getting used to as a background feeling of his life. “Right. Nice spy work there.”

Tom frowned. “It’s kind of concerning actually, I get why you think these places aren’t safe. Ben and Jack are here by the way, Jack’s downstairs sorting out something with the police or someone and Ben’s like, I dunno, patrolling? All military-like. Very scary. Watching out for the guys that hit us, I guess. I’ll tell them you’re up if you want?”

That was good to know. Alex supposed it was lucky nothing had happened before they’d gotten there. “That’s okay, just... give me a bit?”

Tom pulled away from him. “Sorry. Do you want me to leave? That’s what the nurse said you’d want, but I thought-”

“You can stay.” Alex ran his hands down his arms trying to count how many stitches it had been this time. It was going to be a lot of bruises, he could tell that already, and it looked like Tom would match. He didn’t sound like he was hurting, and Alex couldn’t see anything serious aside from the splint on his nose. 

Tom would mess with enough it would come off within a day, and Alex was a little surprised it was even still there. But if that was the worst of it, they’d gotten very lucky. He reached for Tom’s arm and ran his fingers over the bandages there, counting stitches. Tom moved closer to let him. 

“They said your leg’s going to be okay, a couple months of healing and physical therapy and stuff, but you should be able to walk without a cane and stuff.” Tom sounded happy about that, and Alex knew he should be too. It was a good thing, after all. “What’s wrong?”

He must have looked disappointed. He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. “Nothing, really.” Lying to Tom was a waste of time. He’d get it out of him eventually. “I was kind of hoping they’d have to amputate it?”

Tom’s brow furrowed. “What? Why?”

At least he seemed more confused than worried. Tom had a habit of worrying too much. Alex shrugged again. “I wouldn’t be very useful to Six with a prosthetic. Too noticeable, that’d be directly against the whole reason they like me.”

“Oh.” Tom’s features deepened in reflection and he leaned against Alex. “Right. Six.”

“Six.” There wasn’t anything else to say. The shadow that had hung over Alex since before he had even been born wasn’t going to go away easily. Or ever, if Alex was honest with himself.

Tom’s hand was around his, thumb lightly brushing against a cut Alex vaguely remembered getting from putting his hand on the glass while he pulled himself out. He was quiet, much more serious than Alex had ever seen him. “I’m going to lose you to this, aren’t I?”

Alex put a hand up to his shoulder and pulled him into a hug that tugged against the bindings keeping what must have been a fractured rib in place. He’d missed that in the chaos somehow, but it wasn’t his first, he knew it would heal with time. “What? No, of course not. You just said the doctors-”

“No, not- not this. To them. Six.”

“Oh.” Alex couldn’t say he hadn’t thought as much himself. There weren’t a lot of retired spies, after all. He’d been lucky, astonishingly lucky so far, and this time wasn’t any different. 

But it only took one spell of bad luck. One way or another, it caught up with them. “Yeah. Probably.”

“Can’t you stop?” He hated how sad Tom sounded and how helpless he felt. “Just, leave. Ghost them or something.”

He’d thought about that too. “I think that might get me on their wanted list.” 

Tom was quiet again. Alex resisted the urge to check through his hair for the stitches he knew they’d get yelled at later for pulling on. After all the worry he’d been through tonight, it was nice to have Tom close enough to feel the rise and fall of his chest. 

Somehow, miraculously, they’d survived. Tom was still too quiet though, and Alex wanted to talk about something other than the certainty that this wouldn’t be the last time someone tried to kill him. “What did your dad say about the car?”

“I haven’t told him yet.” He wasn’t back to normal again, but this was better. 

“You can tell him I crashed it.”

“I’ll just make something up about drunk drivers. He’s spent the last three weeks warning me about them, he’ll buy it, easy.” 

“Alright.” Alex nestled his nose in his friend’s hair. “Sorry about the graduation party.”

“Why are you sorry? It wasn’t even that big a deal for me.” Tom shifted around to look at him. “Aren’t you upset you didn’t get to go?”

“Nah. Who needs some dumb party, I’ve got you.” He shook Tom’s shoulder playfully, careful not to press on the bruise just below it. “Anyways, didn’t you have plans to ask someone out there? You were so nervous the whole drive.”

Tom blushed and hid his face in Alex’s shoulder. “Nope. No, I did not. No idea what you’re talking about.”

Oh. 

_ Oh. _

That actually made a lot more sense. 

The heart monitor to his left started to beep faster for some reason. “Right. Of course not.”

“Did you?” Tom’s voice was soft and unsure, lightyears different from his usual confidence. 

Alex thought for a moment. “Maybe.” He felt Tom’s muscles tense and quickly amended. “But I guess I can do that now.” 

He could almost see the gears in Tom’s head whirring and screeching to a halt. “Wait-” he sat up and looked at Alex. “Really?”

He laughed, pulling at stitches he hadn’t noticed were in his cheek before. “Yeah-”

Almost before he’d gotten the word out Tom leaned forward to catch him in a kiss that almost instantly sent him reeling backwards, sheepishly rubbing at his nose. 

The heartrate monitor spiked, frantic beeps calling out for doctors and nurses while Alex and Tom burst into a fit of helpless giggles in each other’s arms.


End file.
